Unarmed
by TurnMyGriefToGrace
Summary: Post season six finale mini fic in which I pick up the pieces left behind. Strictly MerDer. We could all use a little therapy after that episode, right? Very spoilery if you haven't the season six finale yet.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: If I wrote it, I wouldn't be a sobbing mess right now. You had to know this was coming. The title, "Unarmed," belongs to Mariah McManus.**

**This is Part One of a multi-part mini fic; it'll probably be no more than two or three chapters, but I wanted to get this posted. The first two paragraphs are from Shonda's blog. It helped me when I was writing this, so I figured it might be helpful when reading, too. Anyway, hope you like this. Part Two should *hopefully* be posted later on today.**

…

_Meredith is whole and healed. I love the scene where she tells April that it took her forever to find Derek and then it took her forever to realize she wanted to be his wife, have his kids. That's a changed woman. The very fact that being pregnant makes her happy makes her a changed woman. And then she lost the baby. It took my breath away. That wince that Meredith gives before she says she is having a miscarriage, it took away my breath. Reed dies and Charles dies and it's sad. But the miscarriage, that's devastating. For Mer. For the audience. For everyone. But you don't know how much you wanted something until you have lost it. You don't know your true feelings until a thing you have is gone for good. And that's what I wanted for Mer. I wanted her to realize just HOW BADLY she wanted a baby. Because Mer is me in a lot of ways. And I always thought I did not want a baby. Until I did. And then suddenly a baby was everything. I wanted her to be sure. Absolutely sure. See, she is a character who spends her life trying not to repeat the mistakes of her mother. She is trying to overcome. And so I needed her to be sure. I've said that Mer will never have kids but then I started to think of that as a challenge. How do I make Mer TRULY WANT to have kids? And so I told this story. It's horrible and it's sad. _

_It is also what I refer to as the bill. You eat a delicious meal at a delicious restaurant, you get a bill. You buy the expensive bag online, the bill comes due. You want in, you gotta pay. Same with life (or at least life as it plays out in my head). The scales have to be balanced. It's the hideous game of fate our characters always play. She gets to keep her Derek but the very thing that makes it okay to keep him, that hideous stressful moment where she believes he's dead? That's the very thing that makes her lose the baby. The bill was due. And the collection agents came calling. I hate it but it's the only way I know to do it – let the universe hand Mer a shiny pony and then kick Mer in the face. You don't get to have everything. There's always a price. _

- _Shonda Rhimes_

…

As Meredith walks down the hall toward Derek's room in the ICU, she bites her lip, trying not to cry. Her husband is alive. That's more than she can say for the others that died today. It's a miracle that Derek made it through. She's grateful for that. She will _always_ be grateful for that. The love of her life is alive.

But the tiny little miracle they made wasn't. _Life is cruel that way_, she thinks. She only knew that baby existed for a few hours, and yet, she loves it as much as she loves Derek. Even now that it's gone. Nothing more than a washed away trail of blood running down her legs. Bile creeps into her throat thinking about it, and she makes a beeline for the bathroom. Once she's within projectile range of the first stall, she vomits into the toilet, hot tears burning her eyes and trailing down her cheeks.

"I'm sorry," she says as she gasps for air, clutching her belly. The empty, childless womb that no longer contained the little person she loved so completely. "I'm sorry."

"Meredith." She hears Cristina's voice and then sees her kneel down next to her from the corner of her eyes, blurred over with tears that haven't fallen yet. "Mer," she says again. "Meredith. Breathe. What happened?"

"Gone," she pants, running her hand through her hair, her fingertips coming in contact with the clammy, sweaty skin of her forehead.

"He's fine. He's right down the hall. What's going on? Mer, breathe," Cristina instructs, grabbing a wad of toilet paper from the roll and handing it to her friend. She flushes the toilet, gets Meredith to lean against the stall, then takes her hand.

"I lost the baby, Cristina," Meredith exhales, her arms limp at her sides, the ball of toilet paper clutched in the hand Cristina wasn't holding.

"Meredith," Cristina sighs.

Panic rises in her and more tears spill from her eyes. "Derek," Meredith begins to pant again. "I need. Just—I need to see him, please. I need Derek."

Cristina nods. "Okay," she says, gently helping Meredith off the floor and onto her feet. She notices the dried blood on her friend's shoes and shakes her head in realization. Derek's blood, and her own. "I'm so sorry, Meredith."

"Me too," Meredith murmurs shakily, finally wiping her eyes.

Seconds later, she's standing in the doorway of Derek's room. It's surreal, the beeping and the wires and the IVs snaking from the crook of his arm to the silver pole at his bedside. She swallows back more bile in her throat. But even if she wanted to get sick again, she couldn't. There was nothing left. Her hand wanders to her abdomen. She never realized how much she appreciated the morning sickness until now. Until there was no baby, no little life inside her that protested every time she ate breakfast in the morning.

And if it weren't for the small smile Derek gives her, she would've fallen to the floor in defeat then. But her husband is alive. Even in a hospital bed, he's the one giving her hope.

"Hey," he says softly.

"Hey," she echoes, her voice cracking as she speaks. It's the first time she's spoken to him since before his surgery. Before there was a gun pointed at her as she signed her life away to save her husband. Before that same gun was pointed at her friends. Before she lost the baby they made.

Meredith walks over to his bed and kisses his forehead. "How are you?" she asks.

"I'm fine," Derek says with as much confidence he can muster, probably more for her sake than his. He studies her face, her pale skin, red rimmed eyes, tear-stained cheeks, for a few seconds and frowns. "It's okay. Everything's okay now," he whispers, taking her hand.

Only it wasn't. But he's in no shape to hear what she needs to tell him. And she's in no shape to share it. He's alive. It can wait.

Meredith manages to smile at her husband and she squeezes his hand. "Yeah," she says. "Everything's okay now."

"Come here," he whispers, slowly moving over on the small bed to make room for her.

She kicks off her blood-stained shoes, maneuvers herself next to him, and exhales when she feels his body heat pressed against her. "I love you," Meredith tells him, comfortingly smoothing her fingers through his hair.

Derek rests his head on her shoulder, breathes her in. Lets her know that he's here for her, just as much as she's here for him. "I love you, too."

After he falls asleep, she weeps quietly, letting her tears fall and splash onto her scrubs. She cries for herself, for her husband, and their baby. A family of three that was so close to losing all its members today. Only two made it out alive. It was their tiny miracle that paid the price.

Meredith's lets the hand that Derek isn't holding rest atop her belly again, linking the three of them together. Three. The baby they lost will always be theirs, a symbol of how much they love each other. The baby that was created out of love, and died out of love.

Derek sighs in his sleep and she looks over at him. Her husband is alive. That's when it hits her. Without Derek, there would never be the chance to make another baby. They could still be parents one day. Today, even for a few hours, they were. And one day, they would be again.

"I'll always love you," Meredith says quietly. "Both of you."

She falls asleep at her husband's side, embracing her grief. It would linger on, she knew. But accepting it was the only way she'd ever be able to let it go.

...

_I have a thing I'd like to say to you_

_Put down your guns and listen to me_

_I am unarmed and I have no fear_

_I will not budge or steer clear of you_

_So just say the words and I'll fade away now_

_Give me a match and I'll burn it all down_

_Pick up your feet and take me home now_

_Cause it's dark inside and I'm all alone_

**Part Two to follow.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: It belongs to Shonda, who actually gave me some McBaby hope for season seven. (If you haven't read her interview with Ausiello, do it!) Kudos, Shonda. Also, the second to last sentence is borrowed with permission from _dakotalady_, who wrote it in her review. It's so poignant, and I think it sums up Shonda's message entirely.**

**Part Two**

It's been seven days since it happened. Since it all happened. The images haunt them all. The hospital is back to normal, at least in the sense that everything looks the same. But for those that were trapped inside that day, everything is different. The bodies and the blood are long gone, but the reality is ever-present.

Meredith stands at the nurses' station and scribbles her name on another of Derek's discharge papers, effectively signing him out of this place indefinitely. Teddy told them that recovery could take weeks, months. And even when he did return, he'd have to take it easy. Which was fine by Meredith. She was half tempted to walk out the doors with him and never look back. But life has to go on, no matter how hard it was to actually make it happen.

She glances back to his hospital room—he was downgraded from the ICU to a patient room a few days go—and sees him smile at her. He's wearing his Bowdoin tee shirt, his hair is perfectly coiffed, and he looks happy. If it weren't for the gauze taped to his chest, and the healing scar underneath it, no one would suspect that seven days ago, he was lying on an OR table, fighting for his life. Guilt washes over her; it's been seven days, and she still hasn't been able to tell him.

She's been by his side the entire time, except for the occasional food run to the cafeteria, or when she drove home a few days back to gather clothes and toiletries for them, and her appointment this morning that she didn't tell him about. Literally camped out in his room, sleeping in the small bed with him every night, eating together, watching endless daytime television. Like a backwards honeymoon spurred on by a gunshot.

But now it's time to leave. To go back home and sleep in their own bed together, something they haven't done since… she can't even remember the last time. Too long. She turns back to the last of the paperwork and sighs. It's really no wonder Derek hated being Chief. Paperwork sucks.

"Hey, are you leaving?" Cristina asks, depositing a chart in the bin.

Meredith nods. "Yeah. As soon as I'm finished here, I'm taking him home."

Cristina is silent for a minute before she speaks. "So, have you, uh… have you told him yet?" she asks quietly.

Meredith puts her pen down, runs a hand through her hair. "No. I haven't," she confesses. "And I know I have to. I want to; but I just… this is something I have to tell him when we're at home, not here."

"Okay," Cristina says, patting Meredith's shoulder comfortingly. "Just, uh, call me later on—if you want," she offers. Just as she's walking away, she turns on her heel. "By the way, what did your doctor say when you went this morning?"

"Oh, she said I'm fine. I haven't had any spotting or anything for days. We could even start trying again in a few weeks if we wanted to," Meredith says.

"Good," Cristina nods. "That's good."

"It is," Meredith agrees, letting a small smile come over her face.

Cristina's pager goes off and she quickly pulls it from her hip. "It's Teddy. I have to go. You sure you're okay getting home?"

"Oh. Yeah. We're fine. I'll call you later, okay?" Meredith says, stacking her small pile of paperwork on the counter. She gathers them in her arms and smiles at her friend. "Thank you, Cristina."

Cristina smiles back in acknowledgement as she grabs another chart. "Yeah," she replies, which is really all she needs to say.

Meredith hands the paperwork to a nearby nurse, then turns back to Derek's room, smiling when she enters. "Hey. Ready to go?" she says happily, walking over to his bed where he's sitting with his legs draped over the side.

"Yeah. All set," he says. She takes his hand and grabs their various bags from the nearby chair, slinging them over her shoulder.

"Let me hold something," Derek insists.

She shakes her head. "You just had surgery a few days ago. You don't need to be chivalrous for a while," Meredith teases him. Being able to laugh with him is nice; despite what's happened, the past seven days—the seven days she was instructed to take off by her doctor, anyway—have been oddly relaxing, healing.

Within a half hour, they're back at the house. After eating and doing some laundry, Meredith helps him upstairs so he can rest, doing her best not to make him feel ineffectual. She knows he can take care of himself; but there's still a part of her that wants to take care of him. Apparently, witnessing your husband get shot has that affect.

"I'm going to take a shower. I'll be quick," Meredith tells him as she hands him the remote, glad she decided to recruit Mark into coming over, lugging it up the steps for her, and hooking it up.

Her mind wanders to Alex, who would be coming home later on tonight. Another wave of sadness rolls through her and she swallows hard. Alex, the closest person she'd ever have to a brother, almost died too. She needs him just as much as she needs Derek and Cristina.

"Take your time," Derek says, kissing her cheek. When she pulls back, he's smirking at her and she smiles.

"What?"

"Am I getting a sponge bath later?" he jokes with her.

He takes a bullet to the chest, and still, Derek is an eternal optimist, able to find humor in every situation. Meredith really loves that about him.

"Hmm, we'll see," she says playfully. Although, honestly, if he wanted a sponge bath, she wouldn't deny him one.

Once she's safely under the water spray in the shower, she cries. It's where she's been doing her crying for the past seven days. Not because she's embarrassed to cry in front of Derek; because she couldn't tell him why she wept. She watches with tearful eyes as the soap suds wash down the drain.

Like the blood that washed down the drain that day. Meredith crouches down and leans her head on the glass door, trying to catch her breath. She lets herself grieve. Grieve for the lost life again. The unplanned baby that she never planned on losing.

When the bathroom door opens, she isn't sure how long she's been in the shower. The water is still warm, so it couldn't have been more than minutes, but when she sees Derek's blurry form on the other side, Meredith is pulled back to reality.

"Meredith," Derek says worriedly, sliding back the shower door and turns off the knobs.

"I'm okay," Meredith exhales, taking his hand and standing up. He wraps the towel around her body and helps her step over the ledge. Then his arms are around her, hugging her as gently as he can because of the gauze bandages protecting the surgical scar underneath.

Derek kisses her forehead, and they stand there. _He's alive_, she reminds herself. _He's alive. He's alive._

"Meredith," he says again.

She closes her eyes, presses her cheek to his. "Later, I promise."

"Okay." Derek wraps an arm around her, and leads her back to their bedroom. He grabs her robe off the back of the door and she shrugs it on, tying the knot loosely around her waist.

When they're lying in bed together, she feels safe. They haven't been like this, in their own bed, a place where the rest of the world wasn't so important, in far too long. Exhaustions hits her, and she sleeps. They both do.

Hours pass before she wakes up, and those few hours spent sleeping next to Derek in their own bed were more restful than every combined night spent in the hospital. Meredith curls into him and smiles. Even in the aftermath, these moments of grief, she finds joy. There's no baby inside her; but Derek is next to her.

She releases a breath and wraps her arm around his waist, resting her head on his pillow.

"Hmm… hey," he hums, yawning as he wakes up, too.

"I had our whole night planned," Meredith says softly, combing through his hair with her fingers. "We were going to order from that Italian place we like. You know, the one a few blocks from the hospital. We were going to come home and sit on the couch and eat."

"Mer?"

"I could picture it—how it would go. I'd pull the test from my pocket and hand it to you. And you'd smile. I could picture that, too. That look on your face when you realized," she continues, a tear racing toward the pillow as it slips from her eye.

Derek turns toward her. He realizes what she's saying, only that look she'd imagined a week ago wasn't at all what she sees on his face. He lets out a breath. "Meredith."

"You would kiss me and I'd kiss you back. And then we'd have that dirty sex on the couch I promised you, then you'd carry me up to bed. And we'd both be too tired to go into work the next day, but we wouldn't care, because we were gonna be parents and that's all that mattered," Meredith says quietly, her body shaking as she says everything she's needed to say to him for the past seven days.

Derek pulls her to him and she lets him hold her. "Meredith," he says again. There's a sadness in his voice that she recognizes immediately, and she nods.

"I lost it," she says weakly, letting herself break down. She didn't have to be the hero with Derek. With him, she could let herself cry.

"How long did you know?" he asks, trailing his hand down her back, still covered with her robe.

Meredith wipes away her tears with her sleeve and sniffles. "That morning."

"And when did you…" Derek's voice trails off.

"While you were in surgery," is all she says, unable to retell the tale of having a gun pointed at her as his heart monitors flat lined. How life in that moment crashed and burned and she felt like dying on that OR floor.

"My stomach cramped up, and then there was blood running down my legs," Meredith cries softly. "It only hurt for a few minutes. Then it didn't hurt anymore."

Derek's eyes fill with tears and he squeezes them shut. "Meredith."

"I know," Meredith whimpers, pressing her forehead against his. "I know."

"Are you okay?" he asks.

"Yeah. My doctor said I'm fine. We can even try again in a few weeks if we wanted to," she says optimistically, hating that she's breaking his heart, too. "Not that we were trying, but…" She wipes the tears under his eyes with her thumbs and smiles, sad and small. "For a few hours, we were parents. I wanted that baby. I _still love_ that baby."

Derek nods somberly and kisses her forehead. "Me, too."

She splays her palm over his cheek and feels his stubble against her skin. "I should've told you, so we could've enjoyed it together, even if it was only for a minute. I should've told you."

"No," Derek whispers. "If you would've told me, both of us might be dead right now. When that gun was pointed at me, and I knew that I we were having a baby, I would've lost it. I would've panicked, and he would've killed me, especially if I told him," he stresses.

He's right, she knows. But still, guilt rips through her. "I wanted you to feel what I felt. That joy. I'm so sorry you didn't get to," Meredith whimpers, choking back a sob.

Derek tilts her chin up with his finger and smiles slightly. "Mer, we'll have that again someday. We'll have babies. And we'll watch them grow up, and they'll be beautiful, just like this one would've been," he promises her.

This is why she loves him. He can say exactly what she needs to hear; he gives her hope. "Yeah," Meredith says with implicit trust, leaning in and kissing her husband. Tears linger on their eyelashes, and he cradles her head with his hands.

"We're alive," he murmurs against her lips as he kisses his wife, vowing that he's going to keep his promise.

Meredith closes her eyes and she can she can almost feel her heart mending itself back together, just like his was. She lets herself smile. "We are."

What happened seven days ago will forever be what they are tomorrow. And she thinks that maybe that's okay.

_And this is the part where the curtain falls  
And the daydream ends it all  
Where the yellow brick road is much too far to go alone_


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer: Still not mine.**

**This will be the last part. I could go on, but this chapter suffices as an ending. You'll see why when you read it. Anyway, I hope you enjoy it. And thanks for reading; I really do appreciate it.**

**Part Three**

Five months have passed since that day. The grief still comes and goes. It gets easier, though. There are sad days, but there are also days filled with joy. Those are the days they focus on. They're alive, and they're grateful for it.

As she gathers boxes with him in the attic, Meredith turns to her husband and smiles. He looks handsome, sexy even, thanks to his endless treks up and down the stairs today, hauling boxes and furniture with her out to the moving truck.

He wipes the sweat off his forehead with the sleeve of his tee shirt and grins at her. "What?"

"Nothing," Meredith shrugs, biting her lip. "I'm just getting turned on, that's all."

"Yeah?" Derek asks. "Well, we'll have to do something about that."

"Later," she tells him amusedly, grabbing another box off the shelf. "Otherwise we'll never get moved out of here."

Derek takes it from her and sets it on the floor, then kisses her. "Deal."

Meredith kneels down and opens it, checking to see whether its contents would be moving with them to the new house, or going in the large trash bag in the center of the cluttered room. She pulls out a thick pink book from the inside and studies it. It was a book she'd seen only once before when she was five. Of course, she appreciates it a lot more now.

"What's that?" Derek asks, taking a sip from their shared water bottle and dropping down next to her on the creaky wooden floor.

Meredith swallows thickly, running her fingers over the smooth cover. "My baby book," she says softly.

"Yeah?" he asks. "Who made this?"

"My dad, I guess. My mom wouldn't have had the time to put one of these together," Meredith replies. She opens it to the first page and sees a picture of her newborn self, wrapped in a pink blanket, peach fuzz brown hair swept into a neat little bow, piercing blue-green eyes, a tiny fist under her chin.

"You were a beautiful baby," Derek smiles.

"Hmm…" she hums. She rests her head on his shoulder and turns the page. "What about you, with the curly hair and blue eyes… I'm sure every little girl in your preschool class loved you."

"Are you mocking me?" he laughs.

"A little bit," Meredith admits. Her eyes grow wide in horror and she groans. "Okay, me on the potty. You don't need to see these."

Derek rolls his eyes, humored by her embarrassment. "Oh come on, every parent does this. I have my fair share of blackmail pictures, too."

"I'll have to ask your mom for those," she teases him. "Only fair."

"Hey, I was a cute baby. Not as cute as you, though," Derek chuckles, studying a photo of her on her first birthday, covered in pink frosting as she smiles at the camera. He sees the tears pooled in her eyes and frowns. "What's wrong?" he asks worriedly, brushing her bangs away from her face.

"Nothing," Meredith replies, letting out a breath. "I don't know. I just think about it sometimes."

"The baby?" Derek whispers. He wraps his arm around her waist and hugs her to him. "It's okay to think about it. I think about it, too."

"It's just… I think about what she'd look like—or he. And I know we _can't_ think like that. We weren't meant to have that baby. It was only ours for a few hours," she says, trying to push away the memories of that day. But it's futile, trying to erase a day like that.

"Doesn't mean we can't miss it though," Derek reminds her, kissing her temple.

Meredith nods, then turns toward her husband and smiles. "Yeah."

"We can still remember it. We can still love it," Derek tells her, a small twinge of sadness hitting him as he studies the pictures of the beautiful little girl in the book resting on Meredith's lap. He wonders if this is what their child would've looked like. So does she.

"We were parents," she says, her voice steady as she speaks. Not sad or happy, just assuredly, like she's stating an undeniable fact.

Derek cups her cheeks in his hands and kisses her, slowly, lets her know that it's okay to remember, to love, to grieve. "We were."

Her fingers thread through his hair and she feels his fingers tugging at the bottom of her shirt. "And I almost lost you," she murmurs, arching her back toward him as he lifts it over her head.

"But you didn't," Derek says softly as he finds the drawstring of her pants.

Meredith smiles against his lips. That's something she's grateful for every day. "No, I didn't."

Packing gets put on hold for a while, but neither of them particularly cares.

…

Meredith wakes up in her husband's arms, their Post-It hanging above the bed, just like at the old house. But it's not the sunlight pouring in through the bedroom windows of their new home that stirs her from her dreams. It's a familiar wave of nausea, the same one she'd felt five months ago, the one she's been feeling for the past few days.

She extracts herself from Derek's arms and sits up, running a hand through her hair. "Hey," he yawns, his eyes adjusting to the light. "What are you doing up? We don't have to be in until seven."

Before Meredith can answer, she bolts from the bed with her hand over her mouth toward the bathroom. Derek follows in after her, holding her hair back while she vomits.

Once she's finished, Derek hands her a cup of water. "You okay?"

"What's today's date?" Meredith asks before gargling and spitting it out.

"The ninth," Derek says, smiling slightly, suspiciously. They haven't been trying for very long, but given their… diligence to the project, he can't help but feel hopeful. "Mer."

Despite the tumult going on in her stomach, Meredith smiles back at him. "I'll steal one from work and we'll do it tonight," she says softly, wrapping her arms around his waist and resting her head on his chest.

His heart is healed, and so is hers. No matter what the test says, they're okay. And happy. And given all they'd been through, even that was reason enough to celebrate.

Twelve hours later, they're sitting on the ledge of the bathtub, the small white stick clutched tightly in Meredith's hands. Déjà vu of the last time she did this crosses her mind, but for once, the thought isn't accompanied by sadness. Her husband is by her side, and tragedy isn't going to strike this time.

The wait seems endless, but then a prominent, pink plus sign appears in the tiny results strip, and she gasps. "Holy crap."

Derek laughs, kisses her with all he has, and she fulfills her promise made many months ago of dirty sex into the early morning hours. They're both too tired to go into work the next day, but they don't care, because they're going to be parents. They _are_ parents.

…

In eight months time, Meredith gives birth to a baby girl, born with dark hair like her father's but eyes like her mother's, and the first time they see her, they can barely breathe, so overtaken by the beauty of the tiny little person they made.

She's nothing short of miraculous, all six pounds of her.

Hours later, after the chaos of the day has settled down, Derek lies in the small hospital bed with his wife, their daughter in her arms. "God, she's so beautiful," he whispers, leaning in and kissing his wife, then pressing his lips to the tiny forehead slightly obscured by the pink cap.

Their daughter grabs hold of Meredith's finger and wraps her tiny hand around it, and Meredith smiles, briefly taking her eyes off of her to look up at her husband. "I told you we'd make pretty babies."

They'll never forget what happened that day, and they don't want to. Their past is what gave them their future, and they're grateful for it. Especially when their daughter stares up at them with inherent trust, the kind of look a child reserves for her parents. They've been parents all along. To the baby they lost, and the daughter cradled in her mother's arms. She curls her body into Meredith and sleeps, a tiny fist tucked under her chin.

_Pick up your feet and take me home now_


End file.
